Women, Work & Wednesbury
Women, Work & Wednesbury is a publication made by artist Sophie Huckfield that contains research and interviews with local women about their role in Wednesbury’s industrial past and present.
What is ‘work’? When we say work, we often think of work existing in a specific place or done by a specific person or industry. In the conversation around industrial work, and even in work more widely, women are often omitted. Women have always worked: whether in the home raising children and having housework responsibilities, or on the factory floor, in offices or working in pubs and shops and in other professions. In the story of Wednesbury’s industrial past and future, women were and remain an integral part of working life. Women are still expected to not only maintain a job but to do the majority of care work and housework.
Much of women’s working-class history goes unrecorded; this small publication records different aspects of women’s experiences of working life in Wednesbury. From historic accounts to interviews with women who have worked in a range of industries, locally and domestically.
Beyond the goods manufactured on the factory floor, social ‘production’ was also taking place in, and outside, the factory and women were a key part.
Download(she/they) is a cross disciplinary artist and researcher with a background in arts, design and engineering. Based at Grand Union Studios in Birmingham and London, UK.
She employs traditional and experimental modes of production such as craft & making, lens based media, performance, sound, workshops and writings. To deconstruct, subvert and interrogate metaphors & stories around social class, making cultures, technological discourses and labour practices.
Her practice is collaborative and she works with a range of organisations and individuals across disciplines to meditate upon the way we think about the world shaped by the tools at our disposal.
